Maybe This Time
by Dark Caustic
Summary: Maybe he'll walk in a little too sure. A little too strong. Maybe you'll notice that. Maybe you'll like that.
1. Maybe This Time

Maybe there will be a Bob Seger song on the radio.

Maybe it'll be in those hazy hours after midnight – when the neon lights of the diner sign will seem too harsh against the black, and yet not enough. A beacon to call in all the lost souls, to crash their ships on this shore. An oasis of coffee and day-old bread.

Maybe he'll walk in a little too sure. A little too strong.

Maybe you'll notice that. Maybe you'll like that.

Maybe he'll sit at the corner of the counter and give you this sort of James Dean smile, all rebel without a cause leather jacket, strong sure arms lined out across the Formica. Maybe you'll wonder what it'd be like to wake up in those arms.

Maybe he'll call you sweetheart, and you'd normally take offense but this time it makes you tingle. Maybe he'll ask your name, since you always hated wearing a nametag.

Maybe you'll tell him your name because you have nothing to lose in a place full of drifters.

Then he'll try it out on his tongue. "Sam," he'll say and scrap his eyes up and down your body so slowly you can feel each inch of skin he maps. Then he'll nod. Like he approves. Your name fits.

You'll pour him fresh coffee and ask where he's headed.

He'll say nowhere in particular and ask where you're headed.

You'll stand there and bust out a nervous chuckle and say something like, "Nowhere. I work here."

He'll ask if that's what you want, and look over his shoulder out the window to the highway cutting across the desert like a raised scar.

"I don't know," you'll admit to this stranger, not sure why. Maybe you're looking for someone to shake you up. Maybe you just need the change of place.

He'll eat pie and drink coffee and stay later than other patrons will. Up to that point when the sun begins to threaten at the edge of the horizon.

Then he'll smile. Climb to his feet and call you 'Sammy.'

Maybe you won't correct him. Maybe you'll like the way the nickname spills out from his lips.

Maybe you want to hear the way he says it gasping and writhing in your clutch. Maybe you want to know what other noises that mouth can make.

He'll leer, just a little, just enough to hang the suggestion hot and heavy in the air and dare you and ask why not?

You think he might quote Tolkien. Spout some nonsense about how not all who wander are lost, but then again, you think he's probably not the type.

He'll just hold up his car keys with one more long stare, break right into your soul with those green eyes and say, "Going once, going twice…"

Maybe you won't even remember stepping out from behind the counter.

Maybe you'll grab his face in your hands and kiss him before he can say three times.

Maybe he'll wrap those strong, sure arms around you and pull you out to his car.

Maybe you'll watch the sunrise plastered against his side as you leave that hellhole of a nothing town behind.

Maybe it'll be the start of something great.

Maybe, you tell yourself, but you know, as he sits down and orders coffee black, that boys like you can't land men like that.

So you'll pawn him off on your cute coworker and go on your break.

Hide in the back till you see his taillights cutting hope into scraps in the dark and return to the ghost-like state you call life.


	2. Maybe This Time, too

_(A/N: For cherishiskisa)_

Maybe he'll be back the next night.

Maybe it'll take you by surprise. You'll be bringing out a meal for that annoying family in the table by the window – and he'll just be there.

At the corner of the counter with a slice of pie.

Maybe he'll wink at you and you'll flush so hard you think you might actually die.

It'll feel just like a reverie. Like the spaces between breathes. When eternity doesn't sit right on top of reality.

Maybe your world will crumble a little around the edges.

Of course, as night encases the seemingly infinite windows of the diner, he doesn't come back. His hearse-black car makes no emergence and your apparition existence continues on.

Then the sun comes and the days feel like the repeat button on a stereo got stuck. You can't you can't remember if you washed the coffee pots or not so you wash them again and a feeling like biting the bullet clings to the inside of your throat in a filmy lack-luster of bile till the do-or-die moment strikes hard in your chest – the last ringing of the midnight bell – and you bolt.

With a backpack and your thumb out on the side of the road because surely, surely, you tell yourself, there must be more to life then this.

Those desert miles slide easily under the tires of the big rig you managed to hitch a ride in. The woman driving the thing reminds you of an aunt you never had as she puts away cigarettes like no one's business and talks about the politics in Russia as though the red scare still loomed large.

But you just smile and listen and nod at the right points because you're not blowing a good chance at freedom.

She'll leave you at a rest stop just south of the border and after you relieve yourself, you'll sit beneath the endless sky at the stone picnic table and the "now what?" of the moment will loom large over you.

Maybe that's when you hear the throat clear behind you.

Maybe that's when you turn around – almost slow motion like a movie – and your heart really stops this time.

Maybe he'll look as dashing in the daylight as he did at your diner, and he'll smile at you and you'll know you're never going to get enough of that.

Maybe he'll ask you if you need a ride.

Maybe you'll say yes.

And slide into that bruise-black car of his. He'll turn up the radio and you'll feel like you've slipped out of your half-life into something like really living.

You won't know how you got so lucky cause even the silence of driving is comfortable with him.

Maybe you'll banter like brothers along the highway for days, each mile creeping you a little bit closer in all the senses.

Maybe you will get to know what it sounds like when he gasps your name.

Maybe you'll be pretty sure you've lucked out this time.

Until you wake up alone somewhere.

In an empty bed with the blankets kicked off.

Maybe you'll know it was a reverie and all good things come to an end.

Maybe you'll dress and pack up your things and scoop up your broken heart and tell yourself it's time to go back.

Who were you kidding?

Men like that don't fall for boys like you.

Maybe when you're walking back along the highway he'll pull up beside you and ask you what you're doing.

You'll blink back tears and feel so stupid but tell him the truth anyways – that you thought he left you. Grew bored of you.

He'll look at you like you punched him, shocked at your words.

He'll bring you into the backseat of his car and wrap his arms around you.

That's when he'll tell you that he loves you.

Maybe you'll get hung up on his heart, your fingers knotted in the notches of his ribs and breathe into him deep and clean. Let him fill up the cracks inside your broken body. Your broken mind.

And that's when you realize that maybe you get hung up on the maybes.

And it's time to just let yourself be loved.


End file.
